


Wolvercote

by lirin



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: Great-aunt Mary was buried less than an hour’s walk north of the city.





	Wolvercote

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shotboxer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotboxer/gifts).



> Thanks to drayton for betaing.

The room was empty, and sun was streaming in the window. Mr. Dunworthy must already be gone on some errand or other, and Colin was left alone. There was so little to do these days; the vicar still had errands for him from time to time, but they seemed less and less important these days, and more and more as if he was just making up something for him to do. Was Mr. Dunworthy’s own errand important, or was he just making up something for himself to do as well? He probably didn’t want to sit around and think about everything that had happened any more than Colin did. They’d already been stuck sitting and thinking for far too long.

Colin supposed he could go for a walk. Great-aunt Mary was buried less than an hour's walk north of the city. Colin didn't think a day had gone by that he hadn't walked twice that far while running errands, and he felt strong enough to walk for an entire day if he had needed to. After all, he hadn't caught a single virus this month, neither the H9N2 that had come out of the knight's tomb, nor the Black Death that had killed all those people in the past. Kivrin and Mr. Dunworthy might still be barely out of hospital and too tired to do much, but Colin felt capable of anything he could think of. He grabbed his jacket—the green one, that his mother had sent after Great-aunt Mary died, when she could finally be bothered to send his Christmas presents but hadn't bothered to buy any flowers for the funeral—and hurried down the stairs to find something to eat. Finch was less worried about supplies these days, and Colin thought he ought to be able to spare some toast or scones or something else that he could wrap up in a napkin and eat on the way.

Kivrin was there in the kitchen. She was sitting on a stool at the counter near the stove, eating toast with marmalade. There must have been another shipment of supplies, then, because even last night they'd still been out of marmalade. Colin nodded to her and opened the breadbox.

"Are you doing anything interesting today?" Kivrin asked.

"Just going for a walk," Colin told her, stuffing the toaster with as many slices as it would hold.

"Care for company? I've spent too much time just sitting since I came back."

Colin frowned. He'd never had company before when he'd visited Great-aunt Mary's grave, but then Kivrin had known her too. She'd helped Kivrin prep for the Middle Ages, and Kivrin probably wouldn't have survived the virus and the plague if it hadn't been for her. He shrugged. "I was planning on walking for at least two hours. Are you strong enough for that?'

"My ribs feel fine these days," Kivrin said. "A walk would do me good."

"You can come if you like, then," Colin said. He laid the toast out on a napkin and started spooning marmalade onto it. "I'm bringing my lunch to eat on the way," he said. "Have you had enough to eat? Or you could bring something too." He looked over the toast with an eye only too accustomed to marmalade shortages, and went back for two more spoonfuls. There was no reason not to eat all he wanted, these days. He briefly contemplated a third spoonful, but that might have been overdoing it. "I'm ready to leave whenever you are."

Kivrin picked up an apple off the counter. "Should we tell someone where we're going?"

Colin shook his head. "That's the best part of being out of the hospital and out of quarantine," he assured her. "Nobody needs to know where you are and what you're doing unless you want to tell them. I tell Finch sometimes, if I want to be sure he'll be able to get a message to me because I'm expecting the post or something. You're not expecting anything, are you? A phone call or a letter or a package?

"No," Kivrin said. "I don't have anyone who would be likely to write to me. And I've already phoned everyone while I was quarantined, and they're unlikely to call back anytime soon."

"My mother never calls either," Colin said. "Come on." He led the way out the side passageway, where they could reach the street without passing anyone who might be likely to waylay them with errand requests. "I thought I'd walk north," he said.

"Anywhere in particular?"

"We'll see." He set off down the road at his usual lope, but Kivrin fell behind almost immediately. "Oh, sorry," he called back to her, and stopped for her to catch up. "I forgot you were still hurt."

"I'm really not hurt anymore," she said. "The doctors fixed my ribs quite satisfactorily. I'm just short. This is my top speed at the best of times."

She certainly was that. Colin knew he still had a lot of growing left to do, and he was already several centimeters taller than her. "I can walk slower," he said, "but you're absolutely certain you're not hurt?"

"I'm sure," she said. "Come on!" She was almost smiling, the happiest he'd seen her in the few weeks he'd known her. It must be nice to get outdoors, Colin supposed, after so long locked away in Infirmary.

They started off again, at what felt to Colin like a crawl. He mentally revised his plans for the outing up to three hours instead of two. Well, it wasn't as if he had anything else to do today. He'd be in school by now if he were at home. But the medical people had said he ought to stay for a while, and then Mr. Basingame had finally shown up and wanted him to stay under some sort of observation for even longer, and his mother hadn't argued when they told her they wanted to keep him in Oxford for the rest of January. At least their observations didn't require him to be locked up in Infirmary any longer. That had been worse than when Oxford was under quarantine.

"Did things get very bad around here?" Kivrin asked. "During the epidemic, I mean."

"It was pretty necrotic for a while," Colin said. "Everyone was trying to stay in, and wearing masks, and yelling if you accidentally bumped into them because that could transmit the virus, even though it was their own fault for standing in the middle of the pavement when people have places to be. And people got grumpier and grumpier as it went on. Probably because they were running out of food and stuck eating Brussels sprouts. Even I get grumpy if I have to eat Brussels sprouts."

"Brussels sprouts," Kivrin said contemplatively. "I haven't had those in years."

"Well, then, you're lucky you weren't here during the quarantine," Colin said. "I mean—well—you weren't lucky, but at least you didn't have to eat Brussels sprouts. How was the food where you were?"

"Tasty enough," Kivrin said. "We had lots of soup. And cheese, and bread, and meat. And some vegetables, but no Brussels sprouts."

"Then you were at least a little bit lucky," Colin said. He watched her closely, unsure whether she'd appreciate the joke.

"A little bit," Kivrin said. She had that same almost-smile on her face, and Colin relaxed. "Frankly, I'm glad the food is different here," she said. "I don't think I could bear to eat a manchet, baked with the same dough and in the same way as they made it all those years ago. But the toast I had this morning didn't bring back any memories. Well, maybe memories of when I was little and my mother would make it for me before school, but I don't mind those memories."

"My mother used to make toast for me, too," Colin said. "Until I turned six, and then she said I was old enough to make it myself."

"You must have lots of practice by now, then," Kivrin said.

"Oh, definitely," Colin said. "I could probably make toast in my sleep. But if I was having marmalade on it, I think that's where things would fall apart. I don't think I can spread marmalade in my sleep without it ending up a sticky mess."

"Isn't marmalade always a sticky mess?" Kivrin said, and she almost looked as if she might laugh. 

Colin hoped he could keep her smiling. She deserved it, after all she'd been through. Reminded of his food by their discussion, Colin pulled the napkin-wrapped bundle from his jacket pocket and liberated one of the slices. "Definitely sticky," he said, contemplating it for a moment, then he took a large bite. Marmalade went all over his face. He probably should have put the sticky sides together instead of stacking them. Kivrin had finally started to laugh. "Want some?" he asked her, holding out the sticky toast. "It's delicious." It was the first time he'd seen her laugh, and he watched her face carefully. This was what Kivrin should look like all the time: eyes alight, cheeks rosy, lips curled in a smile. All that was missing on her face was a touch of marmalade, and this Colin added with a flick of his toast. It was hardly the first time he'd weaponized marmalade, but Kivrin seemed much less likely to yell at him than his mother's live-in had.

Sure enough, she didn't yell at all. Instead, she dived at him with all of the heft that her tiny frame could muster, hand outstretched to grab the napkin bundle. Colin ducked away from her and ran, with Kivrin in hot pursuit. For a short woman who had broken her ribs less than a week ago, she certainly held her own. Colin debated dodging down a side street (though he worried that Kivrin might know this city better than he, having lived here longer), but finally decided he'd better admit defeat before he accidentally encouraged Kivrin to hurt herself. He stuffed the rest of the piece of toast in his mouth and slowed his pace slightly, until she caught up the rest of the way. Triumphantly, she grabbed the back of his jacket with one hand and the bundle with the other. "Marmalade war!" she yelled—how could someone that tiny get that loud?—and smashed the bundle in his face. The world disappeared into a marmalade haze.

"Oops, did I go too far?" Kivrin gasped through giggles. She swiped at his face with the parts of the napkin that didn't have marmalade on them yet. "I think people are staring."

"They're probably worried we've caught Marmalade Disease and are going to transmit it to them," Colin said. "I'm fine, I'll lick the rest off. Come on!"

For all Kivrin's protestations that whatever the doctors had done to her had fully healed her ribs, Colin still wasn't sure. He made sure to walk behind Kivrin for a while, letting her set the pace.

"Are we going anywhere in particular?" Kivrin asked finally. She waited for him to catch up to her, and walked side by side with him. There were still few enough people on the streets that they wouldn't be in anyone's way walking two abreast.

"I was thinking of visiting Great-aunt Mary's grave," Colin said. "But if you don't want to, I can come back another day. It was a nice walk regardless."

"No, that's fine," Kivrin said. "I suppose I should have realized that's where we're heading."

They walked next to each other in silence for a few minutes before Kivrin spoke again. "Have you been visiting her grave often or is this the first time you've come? I didn't mean to invite myself on a private excursion. I can find somewhere else to go while you're there if you'd rather be alone."

"No, I'd like the company," Colin said. "And you have as much a right to visit her as I do. You probably saw more of her over the last year than I did." He pulled another piece of toast—terribly sticky all over by now, and quite squashed—out of the bundle and started munching on it. "I've been coming every other day except when we were locked up in quarantine after we went to the Middle Ages. I just...I thought it might be nice to show her that she's not alone or forgotten. Even though she isn't there—I know she's not there. But it just seems like the right thing to do."

"It's definitely the right thing to do," Kivrin assured him. "If I'd known where we were going, I would have brought flowers or something."

"Oh, there's a grocer that we'll pass on the way, not far now," Colin said. "I sometimes buy flowers there. That way you don't have to carry them the whole way."

"I don't know if I would have made it out of the fourteenth century if it weren't for your great-aunt," Kivrin said. "I'm very sorry that she's gone, and I'm sorry that I couldn't thank her for what she did for me."

Colin shrugged awkwardly. "I probably should have told her thanks a bit more. I didn't get to see much of her, because she was so busy working. It's kind of necrotic, isn't it? I came here to Oxford specifically to see her, and then I barely saw her at all." He swallowed hard. "And now I'll never see her again."

Kivrin patted his arm. "At least you were here to visit her. I'm sure she was glad to see you. She had mentioned a few times that she had a nephew coming to visit, when I was in Infirmary getting my last antivirals and inoculations and all. So she was looking forward to you coming."

"That was before the epidemic," Colin said. "I think she wished I'd gone back on the train to London like I was supposed to. Maybe being worried about me was the one thing that was too much for her, and if it hadn't been for that she wouldn't have been too exhausted to fight the disease."

Kivrin stopped walking then. She turned around and hugged him, right there in the street. It was a good hug, as good as the ones his mother had given him when he was little, before she had decided that he was too old for hugs. "And if she hadn't been worried about you," Kivrin said, "she would have still been worried about me, and about Mr. Dunworthy, and about the thousands of people in Oxford that we don't even know who were at risk of catching the virus if she didn't help them find the cure. But they did find the cure, and I think she would have been very glad of that, and I don't think worrying about one great-nephew more or less made any difference in what happened to her."

Colin didn't know what to say in reply, so he just pointed behind her. "That's the grocer," he said. "They don't have a lot of flowers to choose from, but we should be able to find something there."

Kivrin turned around, still holding on to Colin's arm. "That sounds like a great idea," she said.

They managed to find a bouquet for each of them that wasn't too wilted or squashed, though Colin wasn't sure what Great-aunt Mary would have thought of the gladioluses. Gladiolusi? He didn't think they seemed like her sort of flower. Tulips, maybe. She had been growing some of those on the balcony of her flat, when he came to visit her summer before last. But at a small store like this, you had to be grateful for what they had. Colin refused Kivrin's offers to pay for his bouquet or to buy him a snack to make up for squashing his toast. (As if it didn't taste just as good flattened as it did sitting on a plate on a table at Balliol. Better, maybe, because it had made her smile.) He tucked the wrapping carefully around the flowers and followed Kivrin out the door and down the street again.

The cemetery appeared empty as they walked through the gates. "There's hardly anyone around most days," Colin said. "I think there's been a few other people visiting graves of people who died during the epidemic. And now the quarantine's over, I've seen a few tourists visiting Tolkien's grave. But most of the time it's quiet and peaceful. Do you think Great-aunt Mary would have liked peace and quiet? She always seemed to be bustling around and busy. Maybe it's _too_ quiet here."

"Or maybe it would have made for a nice change," Kivrin said.

"I'm sorry we couldn't bury your priest in a cemetery like this," Colin said after a minute. "He deserved it just as much as Great-aunt Mary."

"He did," Kivrin said. She looked around, at the trees and the grass and the gravestones. "I wish we could have, but we did the best we could."

Colin reached out and held her hand. It seemed like the right thing to do. "Great-aunt Mary's grave is just over here," He said. "We can leave the flowers and tell her we miss her and anything else you want to do."

"That sounds just fine," Kivrin said. They walked down the path of the cemetery hand in hand.

They rounded a bend, and suddenly they were not alone. Ahead of them, someone was sitting at the foot of Great-aunt Mary's grave. It was one of the newest graves in the cemetery, its soil not yet overgrown with the short grass that covered most of the land. Colin stopped in his tracks, and Kivrin stopped with him, still holding his hand. "Is that Mr. Dunworthy?" Colin hissed.

Kivrin nodded. "Do you think we should go?"

Colin tugged at her hand in response, and they both backed away along the path as quietly as they could. Not quietly enough, though, or perhaps Mr. Dunworthy had been about to leave anyway. He stood up and turned around, and of course noticed them immediately as they were the only people around. He waved, a short little half-wave as if he hadn't entirely decided whether to wave or not until after he'd already done it. Colin still thought he might just keep backing away, but Kivrin pulled him forward.

There was a bouquet of lilies leaning against the gravestone, next to where Mr. Dunworthy had been sitting. Colin set his whatever-more-than-one-gladiolus-was-called down next to them. "We didn't mean to interrupt," He said. "We would have come later if we'd known you were here."

"I don't mind," Mr. Dunworthy said. He sounded tired, and old. He rubbed his eyes, and Colin wondered if he'd been crying. "You have just as much a right to miss her as I do. Probably more."

"Do you miss Great-aunt Mary a lot?" Colin asked, sudden curiosity making the question burst out before he had thought whether it would be a good thing to ask.

"She was a good friend," Mr. Dunworthy said. "I should have been there for her."

Colin could still remember Mr. Dunworthy falling onto Mr. Gilchrist—the way they had both hit the console, and then slid onto the floor. He remembered the way Great-aunt Mary had clutched at her head and tried to find her way to a chair, and then her legs had gone out from under her and she'd fallen in a heap on the floor. That had been the last time he'd ever seen Great-aunt Mary until the funeral. Every time he'd tried to visit her, they'd told him children weren't allowed. He'd been alive and completely healthy, and yet he hadn't been able to help Great-aunt Mary one bit. He should tell Mr. Dunworthy that. How could Mr. Dunworthy be expected to help her, if nobody else could? Though maybe if Great-aunt Mary hadn't been so worried about Mr. Dunworthy—would she have rested more? Would it have made a difference? Colin didn't know if it would have, and he certainly didn't know what to say. Should he hug Mr. Dunworthy, like Kivrin had hugged him a few minutes ago? Colin frowned.

Mr. Dunworthy was sitting down again, and Kivrin was sitting next to him. She had put her orange flowers next to Colin's, and she was holding Mr. Dunworthy's hand. "She saved a lot of lives," Kivrin said. "More than I ever could."

"You still helped lots of people," Colin told her. "I tried to help, but I mostly just put up placards that nobody read."

"You also made most of the arrangements for us to rescue Kivrin," Mr. Dunworthy said. "I wouldn't have been able to do it alone."

"I _told_ you I needed to go with you," Colin crowed.

"I'm glad you both came," Kivrin said. "I had begun to give up hope that anyone would come, but I should have known I could trust you."

"You couldn't have known you could trust me yet," Colin said. He grinned at her. "You'd have to meet me first."

Kivrin smiled back. "But as soon as I met you, I knew: now here is a boy who I can share marmalade with." They both laughed.

Colin turned to Mr. Dunworthy. He still wasn't entirely sure what to say. Mr. Dunworthy's eyes were red. Colin wondered how long he'd been here, solemnly paying tribute to someone they all missed terribly. This was not a place for joking around; he regretted every teasing comment he'd made since they entered this place. "We just wanted to say hi to Great-aunt Mary and leave the flowers, but we're all done now," he said. "We can leave you alone here if you want to be alone. We didn't mean to intrude. I just thought—"

Mr. Dunworthy was shaking his head. "It's fine," he said. He reached out and patted Colin on the shoulder gently. Colin leaned into the touch, such as it was. He wondered again if he should hug him, but the moment passed and Mr. Dunworthy drew into himself again, clasping his hands in his lap. "I've said my goodbyes," Mr. Dunworthy said. "I—If you don't mind the company, I rather think I'd like to join you on the walk back. There's a pub near here that I quite like; why don't I buy you two lunch?"

"Apocalyptic," Colin said enthusiastically. "I'm starving!" He frowned at Kivrin's quizzical look. "No, really, I am. All I had to eat today was a few pieces of toast."

"And half a jar of marmalade," Kivrin pointed out. But she didn't object at all to lunch. 

Mr. Dunworthy stood up, and they followed him down the path. "The pub's back along Banbury Road a ways, but not far enough you'll starve to death before we get there," he said. He turned back one last time, right before the path went around a bend and out of sight of Great-aunt Mary's grave. With the three bouquets bright against the headstone, the grave stood out among the dreary stones that surrounded it. "I've said goodbye as best I can," Mr. Dunworthy murmured softly.

Should he hug him or something? Colin reminded himself how much he'd appreciated Kivrin's hug, and pushed any thoughts of how awkward it might be—how he'd never hugged anybody he wasn't related to before unless they hugged him first—how he didn't even know if Mr. Dunworthy liked hugs. Two quick steps closer and he had wrapped his arms around Mr. Dunworthy. Mr. Dunworthy didn't say anything. Already, Colin was regretting his forwardness. What if Mr. Dunworthy hated hugs? He let go quickly and stepped back.

But before he could take a second step, Mr. Dunworthy stepped forward and returned the hug. It was just as good as Kivrin's hug earlier, all warm and comfortable. "I'm glad you two came," Mr. Dunworthy said. "It was rather dreary here, all alone with only the dead for company. But I don't want to stay here forever thinking about what I've lost; there's also time to be spent with what I've gained"—he nodded to Colin—"and regained"—with a nod at Kivrin. He put his arm around Colin's shoulders, and then the other arm around Kivrin, and together they walked out of the graveyard.


End file.
